Ordered,
	That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, That she will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House a Return of the Report, dated 15 June 2010, of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, and of the Principal Conclusions and Overall Assessment, dated 15 June 2010, of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.- (Jeremy Wright.)

Jack Straw: What are the Minister's plans for the future of the National Victims' Service?

Nick Herbert: We are reviewing all these arrangements to promote the interests of victims. I welcome the appointment of the Victims Commissioner and the work she will embark upon. We are aware of the important work that the National Victims' Service is planning to do.

David Cameron: First, I know that my hon. Friend served in Northern Ireland in the Army, and I pay tribute to that. I think that how people respond will be a matter for them. I cannot stop people-as he put it -hitting themselves or indeed even each other over the head with this report. What I hope can happen as a result of today, given the clarity of the report and the lack of equivocation, is that whatever side of the argument-or whatever side-people have been on they will be able to draw a line under what happened and recognise that very bad things happened on that day; it was not justified and it was not justifiable, and there is no point quibbling or arguing with that. As I said, of course people in Northern Ireland will go on looking back to the past, because of the painful memories and also because of the information that has not yet come out, but at the same time as doing that it must be possible to look to the future. In my view, Northern Ireland has a very bright future.

David Cameron: I agree that we should look forward rather than back, and I hope the report will enable us to do that. Of course the hon. Gentleman is right to refer, as I did in my statement, to the 1,000 members of the Army and security services who lost their lives during the troubles, and all that they did to try to keep Northern Ireland safe and secure. Of course he is right to refer to the many thousands of families who have lost loved ones through terrorism and who have not had an answer and have not had an inquiry into what happened to their loved ones. When it comes to answering questions, yes, it is important that IRA members and people who were responsible for things, even now come forward and answer so that people can at least bury those whom they lost. Of course that is important.
	I hope, as well, that the hon. Gentleman will understand that there is something about Bloody Sunday-about the fact that 13 people were shot by British Army soldiers and died on that day-that necessitated a proper inquiry. That is what the report today is about. Yes, we must come up with the answers to other people's questions and yes, we have to go through with the historical inquiries team to try to settle those issues of the past, but let us not pretend that there is not something about that day, Bloody Sunday, that needed to be answered clearly in a way that can allow those families-all those people-to lay to rest what happened on that day.

David Cameron: I thank the hon. Lady for her questions and congratulate her on becoming leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party and on her election as Member of Parliament for South Down. She asked several questions. First, on how long the Government's assessment will take, the report is very long and detailed, and we want to take the summer to consider it and come back to the debate in the autumn, when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State can answer questions more fully and make announcements, if appropriate.
	On redress, I do not think that today is the day to talk about such matters; today is the day to consider the report and take it all in. As the hon. Lady knows, perhaps better than anyone, the families have been involved in a search for the truth rather than for recompense or redress. However, all those issues need to be examined.
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has meetings with the Ballymurphy families. The first port of call should be the historical inquiries team. It is doing good work, going through all the issues of the past and trying to settle them as best it can. We want to avoid other such open-ended, highly costly inquiries. We cannot rule out for ever that there will be no other form of inquiry, but let us allow the historical inquiries team to do its very good work.

David Cameron: The hon. Lady is right that what we really want is reconciliation and working for a shared future, and everyone working across all communities to put the past behind them, but I think we all know that there is still some work to be done on the past, because loved ones remain unburied and murders remain unsolved. That is what the historical inquiries team is there to do. We have to try to do those things at the same time. We must uncover and come to terms with what happened in the past in a way that can allow families to move on, but at the same time we must recognise that Northern Ireland's shared future will be about economic growth and people working together, whatever tradition they come from.

Kevin Brennan: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I hesitate and only tentatively raise this point order with you, but it has previously been the practice in the House that where a statement is made, hon. Members wishing to ask questions about it should be present at the beginning and standing throughout that statement, and preference is then usually given to those who are. Has there been any change to existing practice on that?

Mr Speaker: There has been no change, and I would want to say to the hon. Gentleman that I do not want to travel down that route. If I were an uncharitable and ungenerous fellow and of an unusually suspicious frame of mind, none of which things is true, I would think that the hon. Gentleman was challenging the judgment of the Chair as to who to call.

Elfyn Llwyd: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are in a position today where we are discussing motions that will effectively exclude Plaid Cymru Members from being a member of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee and Scottish National party Members from being on the Scottish Affairs Select Committee. Additionally, there will be no room for those parties' Back-Bench Members to sit on the Back-Bench business committee. What kind of motions are these? What is the point behind them? I urge the Minister to take them away and think them through, as these motions will not stand the test of time, and the people in Wales and Scotland will be furious when they find out.

David Heath: I do not accept that there has not been consultation, that the motions were not tabled at an early stage, or that we have not been talking about this subject for months and months and months, nay, years. I note that the hon. Member for North Durham says that today is not appropriate for discussing the matter, but I note also that the previous Government never found a day when it was right to take a decision on these essential reforms. Today, we are going to put that right. Today, we are actually going to reach some decisions and open up the business of this House to the control of Back Benchers, where it belongs. I hope that we will now proceed with that.

George Young: I am not sure that I buy that point. The object of the Back-Bench business committee is to reflect the views of the House in selecting the agenda for discussion. I am not sure that a display of heroic independence-to an extent that led the committee away from the centre of gravity of the House-is what the committee should be about.
	Motion 4 defines Back-Bench business and provides for the committee to have 35 days at its disposal in the House and in Westminster Hall. This is one of the central recommendations of the report, but it is important to remember the bigger picture. The Wright Committee noted:
	"The single greatest cause of dissatisfaction...with current scheduling of legislative business in the House arises from the handling of the report stage of government bills."
	In implementing one part of the Wright report, it is important not to undermine what another part of the same report says. In addition, the Back-Bench business committee is only half of the picture, and we must not lose sight of the progress that we want to see made in the third year of this Parliament on a House business committee. The creation of a House committee-looking at both the scheduling of Government and Back-Bench time as a single entity-will be better able to balance the time more effectively between debates and scrutiny.
	I shall explain briefly how the proposals will work. The committee will have a total of 35 days at its disposal, which equates, as the Wright Committee recommended, to about one day per sitting week. The time will be divided between the House and Westminster Hall. The Liaison Committee will have 20 Thursday sittings in Westminster Hall for debates on Select Committee reports, and all other Thursdays will be for business determined by the Back-Bench business committee. Each of these Thursdays will count as half a day towards the total allocation of 35. In a typical Session of about 35 sitting weeks, therefore, the committee will use seven or eight days of its allocation in Westminster Hall debates, and the remainder-about 27 or 28 days-will be taken in the Chamber. Some of that time may be taken in the form of 90-minute topical debates, under Standing Order No. 24A, which will count as a quarter of a day. And I am happy to say that I see no difficulty in accepting amendment (a) to motion 4, which encapsulates the 27 days in the form I just outlined.
	It may also be helpful if I say to the House that it is my intention to invite the Procedure Committee to consider whether the sittings in Westminster Hall could be extended to allow for sittings on Monday afternoons. That would provide the Back-Bench business committee with even more flexibility in how it schedules business. In future, it will also be for the Back-Bench business committee, not the Government, to schedule debates on pre-recess Adjournments, on set-piece debates on defence, Welsh affairs and international women's day, and on topical debates. These decisions will rest entirely in its hands, and just as I am accountable to the House for Government business, so it will be so accountable for Back-Bench business.
	Finally on the Wright Committee recommendations, we propose that the operation of the new system should be reviewed at the beginning of the next Session, in late 2011. I recognise that there is concern about the reasoning behind this review, but the object of the review is to enable the House to move forwards, rather than, as some have said, to wind back. There is absolutely no intention to shut down the Back-Bench committee after the first Session. We are committed to establishing a House business committee, dealing with both Government and Back-Bench business, by the third year of this Parliament, so a review of the Back-Bench business committee any later than that would make no sense. I would therefore urge the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) not to press his amendment deferring the review until the beginning of the next Parliament, which, as I said, will be after the House business committee has been set up.
	I shall now deal briefly in turn with each of the remaining motions on the Order Paper.

George Young: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his robust support for the propositions before the House.
	The Government have set out the dates of the 13 Fridays provided for in Standing Orders to allow consideration of private Members' Bills. Amendment (a) to motion 11 would provide extra days for the consideration of such Bills in this Session. Private Members who have been successful in this year's ballot will be advantaged by the fact that the longer Session allows for more time between the Fridays provided for consideration of their Bills on the Floor of the House. That will allow more time for Members to progress their Bills outside the Chamber, in Committee or the other place. I told my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), when we debated this matter in the last Session, that I would not
	"commit any future Administration to an increase in the pro rata number"-[ Official Report, 6 January 2010; Vol. 503, c. 228.]
	of private Members' Fridays in the first Session of this Parliament. And that, I am afraid, is what I will do.

Jo Swinson: I greatly appreciate that intervention from my hon. Friend, and that reassurance. I am sure that this can be solved. The Speaker certainly seems to be given a lot of power in these elections as almost a de facto returning officer, so I suspect a solution can be found.
	I shall now turn to the issue of private Member's Bills and the two amendments in my name: amendment (d) to motion 2 and amendment (b) to motion 4. I want to share with the House why I think this is an important issue, although I also appreciate that some new Members are present and I do not wish to scare them or put them off. I just want to describe my experience of the horror of Friday sittings.
	One of the first Friday sittings I attended dealt with a private Member's Bill sponsored by the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz). His Bill was on climate change and I was keen to support it, and many of my constituents were also keen for me to do so. The second Bill on the Order Paper was about the management of energy in buildings, and we thought that because there would be five hours of business in the Chamber, we might be able to get one Second Reading finished and have another one well under way. We had not counted, however, on a two-hour speech from one Member, and then another Member standing up to try to make a speech of a similar length.
	In order to get a private Member's Bill passed, there need to be 100 MPs for the closure vote, so there were dozens of MPs in the Chamber who had come along to support this private Member's Bill. Indeed, some of them wanted to make some comments on the record, perhaps through an intervention, but had we all done that, the Bill would have been talked out, and all because one or two Members were being, frankly, quite rude about using up time to talk it out.
	I remember sitting in the Chamber and thinking that if I wanted the Bill to go through, I would just have to be quiet and say nothing-and not even say that I supported the Bill. I accepted that but, along with many other new Members at the time, I left the Chamber appalled and furious that this was the way we did our business, and I thought that it absolutely had to change.
	I also remember that when I spoke to Members who had been in the House for longer than me, it was clear that they had got used to things as they said, "Well, that's the way it is." I thought to myself that I never wanted to accept that such a ridiculous way of working is the way it had to be. I suspect that current new MPs would be equally appalled if that happened, but I am sure that there will be an opportunity to make a change, because there needs to be one.

Jo Swinson: I agree absolutely with the hon. Gentleman, and I think that the amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Wellingborough is sensible. As he outlined, it just deals with the fair allocation of the equivalent of 13 days per year-or 26 days over two years. My amendments would also allow the Back-Bench business committee to programme the remaining stages of private Members' Bills, so that once a Bill had received its Second Reading a timetabling motion could be tabled and, thus, the ability of Members to talk out the Bill would be removed at that stage. Although I think that that ability should be gone from the beginning of proceedings on such Bills, and that people who wish to defeat them should do so on the merits of the argument and through a vote of this House, my amendments would be a good step in the right direction. Making a change on the ability to programme private Members' Bill would be helpful.
	I was pleased to hear the Chair of the Procedure Committee say that his Committee will examine this issue more widely, because I accept that my amendment and that of the hon. Member for Wellingborough deal only with small parts of the problem and that the issue of private Members' Bills and Friday sittings needs to be examined much more in the round and more generally. I urge that such a report should be conducted quickly and acted on soon, so that we do not lose the momentum for reform. We do not want there to be an excuse to kick these issues into the long grass. I hope that if we do get some good recommendations, the demoralising and soul-destroying experience that many MPs have sat through on frustrating Fridays will be a thing of the past.
	I was pleased to hear that motion 13 is not going to be moved this evening, because that motion is one of the best arguments against leaving things to the usual channels that I have come across in a long time. Expanding three Select Committees to 16 members was a very inelegant solution, and the fact that it was cooked up by the Whips without even consulting the Chairs of those Committees beggars belief. The Wright report made it clear that 11 should be the maximum number of members on a Select Committee, but we face a genuine problem in ensuring that the minority parties are represented.
	There are different ways of solving that difficulty. In the previous Parliament, when the Liberal Democrats were in opposition, we made sure that some of the places that we were allocated went to the minority parties. I know that that certainly happened from time to time on Committees such as those discussing statutory instruments. One solution might, thus, be for Labour to be similarly generous. Another solution might be to add one minority party representative to these Committees, rather than for them to have an additional four members also. If necessary, in order to maintain the Government-Opposition balance, perhaps we could add a Government Member, but the arguments for adding five extra people to Select Committees do not stand up. I am pleased that the Government have listened on this issue and are going away to find a better solution-it is important that a solution is found.
	In conclusion, when we examine the issues in the spirit of the Wright report we also need not to forget that further reform is required; radical and exciting as today's reforms are, this process should not stop here. The "Involving the public" section of the Wright report contained a lot of good ideas, but much further work needed to be done, particularly on petitioning and the online engagement of this place. Good ideas come from, and reformers can be found in, all parts of this House, and on issues such as these we have been practising the new politics for a very long time in our cross-party working. With the Leader and the Deputy Leader both being so positively disposed to reform, I, for one, am optimistic that most of the motions on today's Order Paper will constitute an important next step in the vital reform of this House.

Clive Betts: I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, as other Members have rightly done. First, I wish to reflect on how pleasing it is that we are discussing not whether the procedures of this House should be reformed, but how that should be done. We have taken the debate forward from the Wright report today, and it is pleasing that the House has chosen to do so.
	I wish to concentrate particularly on one aspect that has not been mentioned very much, if at all, and about which the Wright Committee had some discussions; feelings were equally divided about September sittings, but clearly the Government have chosen that we should resume the practice of having them, at least for this parliamentary year. We held an experiment about seven or eight years ago, when we came back in two successive Septembers, without having particularly glorious results. On one occasion, we managed two votes in a fortnight, and we encountered certain problems with the hunt supporters getting into the Chamber because of security issues resulting from the amount of construction work being carried out on the site while the House was sitting.
	It is often made out that supporters of September sittings are reformers and those who do not support them have their heads in the sand and are looking backwards. In fact, there can be a genuine division of view on how Members would most productively spend their time in September-whether that is in the House or in their constituencies-and on how much time this Parliament sits for compared with other Parliaments around the world. However, I wish to raise a more boring, domestic issue relating to the functioning of this place.
	I wish to discuss maintenance and the building's being fit for the purpose of enabling meetings to take place at which the Government are held to account. It is no use passing motions that say that the job of this House is to hold the Government to account-of course, that is its job-if we do not have a building in which that can properly be done. Having lots of construction work going on around us as we carry out that function was not a happy experience when we tried it before.
	When we consider Government Bills, Government legislation or private Members' Bills, we try to inform ourselves of all the issues involved. However, this House has a terrible habit when we discuss this sort of domestic issue. Things seem like a good idea, we vote one way or the other-if we are allowed a vote on such matters-and then we pass on without any proper advice and information having been made available to Members.
	When I saw the September sittings motion on the Order Paper, I was pleased that it referred to this parliamentary year only. I took the opportunity to go to the chief executive's office, where Philippa Helme is always very helpful, and I then spoke to John Borley, who is the Officer in Parliament responsible for all our building and maintenance works, along with Mel Barlex. I meet them regularly because I was a member of the Finance and Services Committee in the previous Parliament and a member of the Administration Estimate Audit Committee too. The meetings were not always terribly exciting, but they were crucial.
	John Borley told me that they had rightly anticipated that the House might want to sit in September. With a new Government perhaps coming in they could not guarantee that, but the thought was that it could happen and that at a beginning of a Parliament, because business might not happen quite so early, there would be a need for legislation to come through then. As Officers, they rightly predicted that September sittings might be held and they set their maintenance programmes up accordingly. Therefore, there will not be any dramatic effect this year in terms of altering what was already in train and what was already being planned.
	My concern is that on these sorts of issues we do not bother to take account of the people who have to do the detailed professional work in building up maintenance programmes that keep this building functioning, not merely as a place of work, but as one of the most important historic buildings in this country-that is important too. We have seen the work that has been done on the cast-iron roofs, which has been crucial in keeping the fabric of this building going.
	I know that in the past there has been an awful lot of criticism of how we have managed the parliamentary estate. We encountered major difficulties with Portcullis House and problems with the visitor reception area, and they created major problems for the budget of Parliament. We have run over budget and over time on the visitor reception area, which was an unhappy experience from which we have had to learn the lessons. With the appointment of these new Officers to manage our parliamentary estate, I have seen a much higher degree of professionalism, and a much greater willingness to plan ahead, to look at the options, difficulties and costs involved, and to see how we can develop a forward programme for budgeting, which is crucial. I have also seen the work of the Administration Estimate Audit Committee and how internal auditors now work with it to try to ensure that we have best practice in procurement.
	Officers will say two things to us. First, they will say that they need a degree of stability and of advance warning, because it is not sufficient simply to try to pick, on a whim, when Parliament will sit on a year-by-year basis. We need significant and serious forward planning so that Parliament looks, as quickly as possible, at the longer-term arrangements over a number of years and gives the Officers advice about when it will be sitting and when time will be free to carry out essential maintenance work. The second thing that those people will say is that if, having examined the situation, Parliament is bent on having simply a five-week recess year on year, it will not be possible to keep the building in which we work-and that we treasure and have grow to love over the years-in a proper state of repair.
	If hon. Members have any doubts about the situation, they should take a trip down to the underground passages under the House to look at the state at the mechanical, engineering and electrical systems, because they are very bad indeed. We know that a massive work programme will be needed. That will need planning, organising and funding, and it must be cost-effective. If we can shut down the building for only five weeks at a time, it will probably not be possible to carry out the programme.
	It is not sufficient that I report these concerns to hon. Members second hand, so it is important that proper reports are made to the Commission and the Finance and Services Committee, with the audit Committee having a look, so that there can be a report to the whole House to inform Members' decisions. We should try to plan our sittings for a whole Parliament, which would also help Members to organise their activities outside the House. If we could achieve all that, we could better approach these issues that are crucial to our working, even though they are quite dry and sometimes turgid matters that might not excite people politically. It is also important that we send a message to the public that if we have to make cuts to the services that they receive-we might disagree about where the cuts should fall and how great they should be-we will take proper account of the money that we have for the House and ensure that we spend it cost-effectively. Unless we carry out proper planning, however, that simply will not happen.
	It is absolutely right that, if the Government wish, we should come back in September on the basis of the motion. However, if we are looking at future sittings, planning will be required, as will proper advice from the Officers who run the Palace of Westminster for us. All Members should have access to that advice before voting on such sittings in the future.

Pete Wishart: Madam Deputy Speaker, you are the last of the new Deputy Speakers whom I am able to congratulate on your election and elevation. It is always good to leave the best till last-if that does not get me called early in debates, I do not know what will.
	Is it not unfortunate that we have heard no maiden speeches today? I am really missing the kaleidoscope tours of UK constituencies that we have become used to hearing each day, but perhaps a new Member can run to the Chamber and get in.
	Although I am probably alone in this, I cannot share the enthusiasm for the Back-Bench business committee and the great reforming zeal of the Wright proposals. There are serious problems for the minority parties. We have already recognised some of the problems that have inadvertently been created, and I am grateful to the Leader of the House and his deputy for trying to address our concerns and for speedily withdrawing motion 13. I, like all my colleagues, am grateful to both of them for ensuring that the question of whether minority party Members can be considered for Select Committees will be addressed.
	The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) -unfortunately, she is no longer in the Chamber-made a pertinent point about the quota for securing a place on the Back-Bench committee. We just cannot do it. We have only six Members. Plaid Cymru has only three. The Democratic Unionist party is the largest of the minority parties, and the fourth largest party in the House, but it cannot do it. I am glad that there is a genuine attempt to address the matter and. Hopefully, we can make sure that we are in the race to get a place if we can increase membership of the Committee to a reasonable size that will allow us the opportunity to participate in the House.
	This has not been a good few weeks for the minority parties; things have been really poor. I do not know what is going on. I came back to the House expecting that we would secure more input into the House and better representation, but since coming back we have experienced further entrenched exclusion. Last week, the Deputy Prime Minister got to his feet in the House and announced a new Committee on reform of the House of Lords. There was no consultation with the minority parties-or much consultation with the rest of the parties. We found that there would be no place for minority parties on that Committee. There is now a Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. Constitutional reform is what our parties are about; it is our reason for being here, but there is no place on the Committee for the minority parties.
	There is still no resolution on the issue of the Liaison Committee. Fair enough, we do not have a Chair of a Select Committee, but the Liaison Committee is a Select Committee of the House, and arithmetically, we are entitled to a place on it. That was conceded by the former Government, and I hope that it is conceded by those on the Government Front Bench. We need that opportunity to question the Prime Minister on a monthly basis. That opportunity should not be confined to the three main parties of the House. The minority parties have to get on the Liaison Committee.
	Then there is the biggest disappointment of all: the Wright proposals. We are to be excluded for all the "good" reasons. We are excluded in the name of democratic reform and making the House accountable-things that we agree with. There will be no place for us on the Back-Bench business committee. It is just not possible that there will be, given that it has eight members; it is not going to happen. I just wish that the Wrightinistas, as I call them-those pioneers of reform, those champions making sure that this place is much more accountable, out there fighting the good fight against the dark forces of the Government Whips-would concede that, and acknowledge that on a Committee of eight, there is absolutely no way of that happening.

Graham Allen: I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and welcome her to the House. I am sure that she will contribute not only to environmental politics but to a broader sphere, particularly in the ideas that she has expressed about our democracy. We should have humility and learn from not only other nations but from the operation of the devolved Administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, where-dare I say it?-one can sometimes find a more real Parliament than we have here. Sometimes, one can find genuine debate and exchange, which has been so rare here. However, we can recapture it if we work at it.
	The Back-Bench business committee will help us create such a Parliament here. It will help us revert to being the people's forum. Rather than the debates in which we are all interested happening on the "Today" programme or "Newsnight", those interactions and key conversations could take place here. When I woke up the other morning, I listened to "Today", which was considering three main issues: a possible increase in student fees; a report about a possible 3 million unemployed, and a report about abused children and whether there is a way in which to sort out the problem much earlier in their lives. Those are three genuinely important issues, which we all want to discuss. I came to the House of Commons and the whole day went by without a single one of those items, which had been headline news that morning, being debated or discussed. It should be the other way round. If we recreate our Parliament, we will raise the issues and the media will follow behind us. We should all aspire to that sort of House of Commons. The Back-Bench business committee is a small flame that can move outwards and ensure that we do that job particularly well.
	Like so many hon. Members, I must say that the Government have done a remarkable thing in introducing the proposals today. Within weeks of a general election, they have moved on the subject. I must be blunt-I do not wish to offend any Labour colleagues, but we dragged our feet. The Wright Committee made every possible effort to conclude the matter. We tried to engage with the most senior people in our party to show that we cared about that and if only for purely political and electoral reasons, demonstrate that we cared about the future of our political system. The new coalition Government deserve credit for, and should be congratulated on, tabling the proposals. That needs to be put on record.
	Some 95% of the proposals are what the Wright Committee suggested, but there is a bit of slippage with some. That has happened because, when one gets into government, certain practicalities get in the way. There is a desire to ensure that other priorities are fulfilled, as well as the dead-weight, often of senior civil service bureaucracy, and sometimes of our colleagues in the various Whips Offices, who feel that things must stay exactly as they are because that is how they control things. It reflects the old joke, "How many MPs does it take to change a light bulb?" "Change? Change?!" Sometimes we get a sense from our colleagues of better safe than sorry. If there is a little risk-taking in the Chamber, I hope that Labour Members will make allowance for it and grant it leeway, particularly if people fall flat on their face when it happens. We need to advance our system so that our democracy can prosper.
	In the past week or so, we have witnessed the beginning of a sensible conversation. In trying to create a Back-Bench business committee, the interaction between all the different people who are involved-certainly the minority parties, which have been sorely tested by the failure of the usual channels to give them a fair crack of the whip-has been important. Back Benchers have been involved, and Select Committee Chairs, within days of being elected, have shown their muscle and their desire to protect the rights of the House. Front Benchers have also played a positive role-I include my new Front-Bench colleague as well as other Front Benchers in that. I hope that, rather than proposals having to be withdrawn on the Floor of the House-for which I am grateful; I will deal with that later-the dialogue can take place a little more formally and a little earlier in future. If we can make progress with the conversation, perhaps we can address such matters by consensus rather than by withdrawing stuff on the Floor of the House. It is a difficult task, especially so for two new incumbents, but I wish them well in trying to get the conversation under way.
	Let me deal with the amendments. Many are in my name and the names of 32 other Back-Bench colleagues. It could have been 232, and I claim no credit for the amendments, but my name appears first, so I am happy to speak about them. But first, I should like to give a little more perspective on what can be very dry, dusty stuff-the Back-Bench business committee, what is a quorum and how we elect the Chair-and say what the proposed committee is really about. The committee is about taking the chunk of business that all of us accept is the province, property and interest of Back-Benchers, pulling it together and taking a Back-Bench view on how best to use it. Rather than the Leader of the House deciding that we should have a general debate next week on something or other, there would be a process by which all of us, collectively, could decide what that debate should be about. We could decide that tomorrow's debate will be about something that happened overnight or a Government announcement on widows' pensions. The debate could be on the terrible murders in the north-west, how we respond to the BP crisis or whatever, but it should be on a cause that we feel, collectively, should be debated, and that our constituents would like us to debate. They might even want to turn the television on to see us talking about that subject live, rather than see a digest later with John Humphrys, Jeremy Paxman or somebody else.
	However, we need to be clear that when we talk about a Back-Bench business committee-the Wright Committee made this absolutely plain-it is not a case of, "Tomorrow, the world!" Some distinguished colleagues on that Committee, including my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who spoke about this tonight, made it very clear that the Government have a right to discuss their business. It is part of the House's role to examine seriously legislation that the Government introduce, but at the end of the day, providing they have a majority, they should carry their business. We are talking about that bit of business that is non-legislative but which involves the keen interest of Members of Parliament.
	Too often, we see Members of Parliament rattling through lists of things that they regard as important. If I may say, Mr Deputy Speaker, you are one of the greatest exponents of the early-day motion. With the proposed committee, we are almost turning the early-day motion into a motion that we can genuinely discuss at an early day. If there is so much interest in debating a particular topic, it could be on the agenda the next day or the day after that, even if we would need a further mechanism for that. The Government need not fear that their agenda will be taken over, but Parliament could for the first time say, "Our agenda, at least in part, is our possession," and it will be able to decide, on a small number of days, what we will discuss. That is very important-it is one of the key things that the committee will do.
	There is a group of amendments on the Order Paper that addresses a questionable aspect of the Government's proposals; namely, the one-year termination. The Government proposal is that members of the Back-Bench business committee will be members for only one year, which is unlike tenures for other parliamentary offices and institutions, which last five years. Chairs and members of Select Committees-there can barely be a Member in the Chamber tonight who is not standing for membership of a Select Committee-will be in office for five years if they are successful, which gives a sense of continuity, and members and Chairs have the ability to learn a subject, and to grow as a Committee with their colleagues.
	Let us imagine if we were on Select Committees for only one year. We would already be counting down the time, thinking, "There might be something else on the way. I might want to swap over. Somebody doesn't like me and I don't get on with so-and-so, and the chair is a bit of a pain." The Chair, of course, would be saying, "I've only got a year, but I really want to do something long term with this Select Committee, so let's pick up whatever is in the papers."
	There is a more insidious problem. If Members are really good as Back Benchers, they might just cross Front Benchers-the wrong people. They might be so good-they might expose something, or scrutinise and call their those on their Front Bench to account-that instead of being lauded and given plaudits, they go on a list. I have been in the Whips office, and I have had my lists. The vow of silence forbids me from going further on that, but I can tell the House that we were not lining up to give accolades to the Gwyneth Dunwoodys-precisely the opposite. Let us imagine the whispering campaigns that would take place if Select Committee members or Chairs had a one-year tenure, and the undermining that could go on. People would say, "You can get rid of that Chairman and have a go yourself," or, "You're not on a Select Committee. So-and-so is not very good. She or he always creates a problem, so why don't you think about putting your name forward."
	I know that colleagues on the Government Bench-the Leader and Deputy Leader of the House-do not intend that. However, much as I wish them longevity, they might not be here this time next year, and some less benign people might be. The latter might propose a review not to strengthen the Back-Bench business committee, but to undermine it. If someone took that chance, we would all greatly regret it, because we have a historic opportunity. This is the one and only time in my long political lifetime in this place that such an opportunity has come to pass. The right hon. and hon. Gentlemen have been incredibly flexible today, so I ask them, before the winding-up speeches, whether they wish to continue to oppose the amendments in my name and those of my colleagues by which we seek to provide the same sort of lifespan and stability that we expect as members or Chairs of Select Committees, so that this new bud can be protected should there be some stormy weather a year out that we cannot predict now.
	Perhaps I am being too suspicious-it may be those years in the Whips Office and my brain is still a bit frazzled. We could pass the matter over if there were just one proposal to undermine the committee-the proposal to review the committee after one year. However, there is a second occasion when the committee might be undermined, because its members must be elected after a year. There is even a third occasion, because the Chair must be elected after a year. With those three proposals we are, as Sherlock Holmes said, starting to develop a pattern. With great respect, I say to Government Front Benchers that there is still a moment when they might ask themselves whether they want to perpetuate that pattern, or whether they could generously reconsider the matter and either allow the amendments to be made, or decide not to promote their proposals.
	There is another, rather demeaning aspect, which I was surprised to see included. When the Back-Bench business committee meets, it will have arguments. I intervened, regretfully, on this point in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire, who otherwise made some very good points. If the meetings are wholly in public, decision-making will be driven underground, because sometimes it is dirty and messy. It can be a compromise, with promises made, so that something else is done in six months' time when people will not know that it is the result of a deal already done. I would like as much of that as possible to take place openly in the business committee, but not necessarily in the full glare of publicity. If decision-making is totally open, people will behave differently, and we may end up with worse decisions.

Mark Lazarowicz: I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your election to your new post, Mr Deputy Speaker.
	I wish to speak in support of amendment (a) to motion 11, tabled by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), on providing more days for the discussion of private Members' Bills. There are all sorts of good democratic reasons for doing that. I had intended to expand on them a little tonight but, given the excellent, comprehensive and wide-ranging speeches that we have already heard, I shall merely say that I endorse the hon. Gentleman's comments, as well as those from the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), on why there should be more days for the discussion of private Members' Bills than the Government are currently proposing.
	I have not heard any good arguments against the hon. Gentleman's amendment. The Leader of the House of Commons put forward an argument that the hon. Member for Wellingborough described as consisting of "smoke and mirrors". With respect, I am not sure that I would even dignify it with that description. The Leader of the House's argument seemed to be that it was important to have more days between private Members' Bill sittings to allow things to go on outside the main Chamber. I was not sure what was meant by that. I can only assume that it was felt that that arrangement would allow the Committee stages of private Members' Bills to take place between the different Fridays, and that that would be easier to achieve if there were more time between the sittings allocated for private Members' Bills. If that is the case, it reveals a misunderstanding of the way in which the private Members' Bill system operates. If three successive Fridays were allocated for private Members' Bills, with a Second Reading one week, the Committee stage the next, and Third Reading on the third Friday, the next private Member's Bill in line would simply be debated on the subsequent Friday. As the hon. Member for Wellingborough has suggested, it is hard to see how allowing more days for private Members' Bills would jeopardise the Government's position.
	It has been suggested that, if were to adopt a private Members' Bill system that worked more effectively, fewer days could be allocated for the purpose of dealing with them if a positive outcome could be achieved in the time allowed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said earlier, however, we all know that what matters on private Members' Bill Fridays is not the quality of the measure, or even the number of Members present to support the Bill, but whether the proposer and those on the Government and Opposition Front Benches can find their way round the arcane procedures that are used on such Fridays-procedures that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda described as "shenanigans". I have had the experience of taking three private Members' Bills through the House over the past six years, so I certainly know how the system works. I know some of the ways of getting round it, but I also know that it is a very unsatisfactory procedure for all concerned.
	Addressing the way in which private Members' Bills are taken through Parliament will require a number of procedural changes, and I welcome the commitment from the new Chair of the Procedure Committee that his Committee will look at that at an early stage. One way of allowing private Members' Bills proper time for debate would be to move them from Fridays to Wednesdays or to Tuesday evenings, which would give Members the opportunity to attend the debates in much greater numbers than they are able to do on Fridays.
	I take issue with the hon. Member for Wellingborough-I otherwise agreed with much of what he said about private Members' Bills-as it is not satisfactory to say that Members can decide whether or not to turn up on Fridays to consider those Bills. We all have to make such a decision at the moment, but because of our constituency commitments, it difficult for us, with one or two exceptions, regularly to attend on Fridays-and the further away from London our constituencies are, the less easy it is for us to do so.
	I would often like to participate in private Members' Bills debates on Fridays, and they often relate to issues that are important to many of my constituents who understandably expect me to debate them. They are likely to find out, however, not only that I and many other Members are unlikely to be there, but that what they thought was going to be debated on a particular day-and hoped had a chance to get through-is likely to be talked out because of the use of some parliamentary procedure and never reach any further stages. Not surprisingly, members of the public get angry at Members of Parliament and at the political system that allows that to happen.
	I believe that Fridays should be recognised and named as a constituency day, on which Members can allocate their time to their constituencies. It should be named as a constituency day so that those out there who want to condemn any absence from Westminster as equivalent to some form of extended holiday can, if they wish, carry out a study to ensure that we are indeed in our constituencies as opposed to sunning ourselves on a beach. Let us make it a regular commitment, with Fridays acknowledged as a constituency day. I hope that the Back-Bench business committee will discuss this proposal at an early stage of its considerations. It could look into the constituency issues more widely, and demonstrate that MPs spending some of their time in their constituencies is essential to our democracy. We cannot represent the views of our constituents in Parliament if we are not regularly in touch with them.
	That brings me to the issue of September sittings. On the one hand, I support the proposal to come back in September, as I believe that Robin Cook's initiative when he was Leader of the House was totally justified. It is hard-indeed, impossible-to justify to the public why we need this long 13 or 14-week gap in the summer, in which we are unable to hold the Government to account unless the House is brought back for a special Sitting. On the other, we have to recognise that we cannot keep adding days and days, weeks and weeks to the parliamentary Session without it having knock-on effects somewhere else in the system.
	We have to recognise that Members need to be in their constituencies and we also need to recognise, bluntly, that Members have family commitments. I have an interest here in that I have four children in either primary or secondary schools in Scotland; my children are likely to be on holiday from the end of June and will be back at school in mid-August. I would like to have the same opportunity that colleagues in England have to be at home for a fair part of my children's school holidays, but I will not have that opportunity. Anything that makes it harder for people to combine their role as Members of Parliament with a normal family life is not exactly going to encourage this place to be open and more representative of the public in the way that we all want. I hope that, in addition to considering the procedures for private Members' Bills, the Leader of the House will look at ways to recognise our constituency commitments as an important aspect of all MPs' work and reflect them in the sitting days of the House.
	I invite the Deputy Leader of the House to clarify in his closing remarks the Government attitude towards an early proposal to move away from Friday sittings for private Members' Bills and replace them with Wednesday sittings. I certainly gained the impression that the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House were sympathetic to the idea of moving to Wednesdays for private Members' Bills. There was quite strong support for this across the House, so I hope that the Government will be able to give that proposal at least a favourable and general welcome today. I believe that such a proposal would be welcomed not just by individual Members, but by all those who want to see private Members' business getting the status it deserves.

Michael Meacher: I think we have had a good and thoughtful debate, although it had a rather rickety start. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who, in an eloquent and comprehensive speech, spelt out how exciting and important this period is in Parliament's history; and, like others, I pay tribute to the Government for the promptness with which they introduced Standing Orders to allow the establishment of a Back-Bench business Committee. There is no doubt that that reflects the good will, commitment and supportiveness of the Leader of the House and his deputy, and I thank them for all that they did in preparing the orders.
	The debate marks the culmination of a long struggle that stretches back many years to the formation of the cross-party Parliament First group, which has consistently and effectively campaigned for parliamentary democratic reform under the chairmanship of the former Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent, Central, my very good friend Mark Fisher. We will, of course, continue to owe a great and continuing debt of gratitude to the Wright Committee, chaired so admirably by my former hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase.
	Having issued those plaudits-with great sincerity-I have to say that I think the Government's initial ardour seems to have cooled just a tad. A number of modifications have crept in, which, in my view, have undermined some of the original commitment. It is because the combined effect of those slippages has clearly been to weaken the position of Back Benchers that, along with many of my hon. Friends, I have tabled a number of amendments designed to ensure that the Government's initial commitment survives.
	The most important amendment relates to a question that has been raised a number of times, and because of its importance I make no apology for raising it again. It concerns the term of membership of the Chair. The order proposes that members and the Chair should serve for only one year after election, but we strongly reject that proposal on the ground that no other parliamentary Committee-including Select Committees -is being treated in that way. The elections to Select Committees, which, admirably, are taking place at this time-for the Chairs, who have been chosen, and the members, who are about to be chosen-are for a full Parliament of five years, and there seems to be no valid reason for diverging from that principle.
	The Leader of the House was questioned about the issue, and I noted what he said. He spoke of the importance of accountability-of course we all agree with that-and of the need for new blood to refresh the Committee. Of course I understand that too, but it applies to Select Committees as well. I do not think that the Leader of the House took on board adequately the point made behind him about the question of independence. We believe that members, once elected, should be fully independent. We do not think that they should have continually to look over their shoulders, or feel liable to the Whips or Front-Bench pressure in order to secure repeat elections year after year.
	Annual elections give too much power to the Whips and the establishment, allowing them to exert influence on the Chair not because he or she is inadequate or incompetent, but precisely because he or she is too effective. Let me suggest to the Leader of the House, in all friendliness, that annual elections will profoundly undercut the impact of reforms that are excellent in so many other ways.
	Another issue-I was not going to mention it until my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) did so and I think he was right-is that the Government are proposing that, before any business starts that has been decided on by the Back-Bench business committee, a member of the committee must make a brief statement of up to five minutes to explain why the committee made that decision. Again-it hardly needs repeating-no one else does that in any other part of the House. No Minister is ever required to do that. If for any reason either the chair or any member of the committee wishes, with permission, to make such a statement, there is nothing to prevent them from doing so. However, to require that to happen in every case, when in most circumstances Members will be well aware of the thinking behind the decision, seems unnecessary, a waste of time or even obstructive.
	The Leader of the House will know perfectly well that Members will want to get quickly on to the debate. They will not want to be diverted by what they will perceive as superfluous formality. I hope that he will consider whether that proposal should just be quietly dropped.
	I recognise that, when the Leader of the House was questioned last Thursday, he went as far as he could, leaning in our direction, by offering an allocation of 27 days. He has now gone further still by agreeing to accept our amendment. I thank him warmly for that. However, always wanting to go a bit further, I think that 35 days would be even better, not least because it is only on the Floor of this House that the votes will take place. The Leader of the House pointed out that the implication of that, to which he is probably quite sympathetic, is that the House might have to sit into August. However, I hope that he will reconsider and be prepared to consult about various alternatives that could achieve the objective of 35 days on the Floor of the House without encroaching into August.
	One of those options is the use of more Fridays. In previous years-indeed in previous decades-the House has sat on Fridays to a far greater degree than it does today. I am well aware that, whatever one suggests, it will not please everyone, but I hope that the Leader of the House will genuinely consult to find a way forward that is acceptable and desirable to the majority. The important point is that 27 Back-Bench business committee days in this House should be the bottom line, consolidated by the Standing Order and not dependent on discretion. That is why I am grateful-I am sure that we all are-that he has accepted the amendment.
	By and large, this is an excellent set of Standing Orders, for which the Government are to be congratulated. I hope that the Leader of the House will accept that the amendments that we have had to table are not in any way designed to oppose what he is trying to do; they are designed to improve that. I hope that he and other hon. Members will look upon them in that spirit.

David Heath: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I can say only that the House of Commons Commission is considering this. As I say, I am not a member of that body, but I would not be putting forward this proposal today-I should remind hon. Members that it is one of the things that the Wright Committee asked us to put before the House- if we felt that there were impossible hurdles to cross this year. However, this matter may be something that we need to consider in future years.
	I wish now to deal with the points made by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone)-they were also reflected in the comments made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz)-about the important matter of private Members' Bills. He rightly drew attention to what I had said on a previous occasion when he tabled a similar amendment. He quoted me, so may I quote myself? That is always an invidious thing to do but as he quoted me, I shall quote myself. He said that I had said that "perhaps there should" be a change in Standing Orders. I stand by that comment-perhaps such a change should be made-because I want us to do a much better job of dealing with private Members' Bills.
	We do not do a good job on these Bills at the moment and the process contains procedural hurdles that are absurd, and are seen as such by our constituents. Far too often, excellent measures that are introduced by individual Members do not make it to the statute book, despite substantial support in the House, simply because of the way the system works. I am therefore delighted that the Chair of the Procedure Committee, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), has volunteered that his Committee will examine this as an early matter of priority. It is essential that the Committee does so and I hope that it will make proposals. I also hope that the issue of how many Fridays are made available will become redundant because we will have so improved the way we manage private Members' legislation that Fridays are not the crucial factor in deciding whether we make progress.

David Heath: I am delighted to have satisfied the hon. Gentleman in his quest; we are making progress.
	I am grateful to the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) for her comments. She has made it perfectly clear throughout that she was a member of the Wright Committee who did not agree with all its proposals. She has taken a proper position. She had a minority view, she has expressed it and she has been consistent in her position. She amplified that a little by raising specific issues in tonight's debate, so I shall deal with them. She asked whether members of the public will be excluded from the meetings of the Back-Bench business committee and indeed whether Members of Parliament who are not members of that committee will be allowed into the meetings to hear the deliberations. The rules that will apply will be the same as those for any Select Committee. I genuinely think that it is not for a Minister of the Crown to tell the Back-Bench business committee how it should undertake its role. However, I hope that it will consider, carefully and early on, how it will manage its business, and in what circumstances it will have open meetings and in what circumstances it will not, in the same way as Select Committees across the House do. She has raised an important issue, and it is a matter that the Back-Bench business committee-if we constitute it-will need to consider.
	The hon. Lady asked about the party political make-up of the committee and whether seats would be allocated in the same way as for normal Select Committees or the system would be entirely open. As she knows, a formula reflecting the composition of the House is generally used, and it is intended that that formula will be used to determine the make-up of this committee. However, there is an issue of how we accommodate the minority parties in the Select Committee process, and I shall come later to the points made by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart).
	The hon. Lady also asked whether a Chair of another Select Committee could stand for election as chair of the Back-Bench business committee or one of its members. Nothing in the proposed Standing Orders would preclude that, but she raises an important point. It would be extraordinarily bad practice if a Chair of another Select Committee stood for election to the Back-Bench committee because their membership would inevitably raise the suspicion that that Member's Select Committee had enhanced access to the business of the House. I would hope that that would not happen, so I strenuously urge those hon. Members who were lucky enough to be elected as Select Committee Chairs not to put themselves forward for the Back-Bench business committee.
	My hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) made an excellent contribution to the debate. She emphasised the frustration that we did not get the committee up and running before the general election. The previous Government failed to give us the opportunity to make the necessary changes to the Standing Orders, so I am proud of the fact that, in the first week following the conclusion of the Queen's Speech debate, the House is determining the matter-that represents excellent progress.
	My hon. Friend emphasised the need for a minimum of 27 days' Back-Bench business in the Chamber and, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, we are happy to accept amendment (a) to motion 4 because that was always our intention. She also asked whether further progress could be made, including on the innovative use of time. I hope that we can find innovative ways of using time more effectively, and of course we firmly intend to move to a House business committee within three years. That will mean that we have a totally different way of managing the House's business, which will be a good thing.
	I think I have already dealt with my hon. Friend's point about private Members' Bills. She also said that the Wright Committee had further ideas that she would like to see progressed, such as some about public engagement. I agree that the Committee made further excellent suggestions. We have not lost sight of them and hope to come back to them in the future.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 It being after 9.30 pm, the Speaker put the remaining Questions (Order, this day),
	 Amendment proposed to motion 2: (b), in paragraph 3, leave out "Session and insert "Parliament".- [Mr Allen.]
	 The House divided: Ayes 171, Noes 263.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Amendment (c) to motion 2 made: Leave out paragraph (8)- ( Mr Allen .)
	 Main Question, as amended,  agreed to.
	That the following new Standing Order be made:-
	(1) There shall be a select committee, called the Backbench Business Committee, to determine the backbench business to be taken in the House and in Westminster Hall on days, or parts of days, allotted for backbench business.
	(2) The committee shall consist of a chair and seven other Members, of whom four shall be a quorum.
	(3) The chair and other members of the committee shall continue as members of the committee for the remainder of the Session in which they are elected unless replaced under the provisions of Standing Order No. (Election of Backbench Business Committee).
	(4) The chair and members of the committee shall be elected in accordance with the provisions of Standing Order No. (Election of Backbench Business Committee).
	(5) No Member who is a Minister of the Crown or parliamentary private secretary or a principal opposition front-bench spokesperson shall be eligible to be the chair or a member of the committee: the Speaker's decision shall be final on such matters.
	(6) The committee shall have power to invite Government officials to attend all or part of any of its meetings.
	(7) The committee shall determine the backbench business to be taken-
	(a) in the House on any day, or any part of any day, allotted under paragraph
	(3A) of Standing Order No. 14, and
	(b) in Westminster Hall, in accordance with paragraph (3A) of Standing Order
	No. 10, and shall report its determinations to the House.

Resolved,
	That, in the opinion of this House, the operation of the Backbench Business Committee should be reviewed at the beginning of the next Session of Parliament.—(Sir George Young.)

Business Of The House (Private Members’ Bills)

Ordered,
	That Private Members’ Bills shall have precedence over Government business on 22 October, 12 and 19 November and 3 December 2010 and 21 January, 4 and 11 February, 4 and 18 March, 1 April, 13 May and 10 and 17 June 2011.—(Sir George Young.)

Rosie Winterton: I very much welcome the opportunity to debate the activities of private wheel-clamping companies, particularly in Doncaster Central. I also very much welcome the fact that this is, as I understand it, the Minister's first appearance at the Dispatch Box. I am utterly confident that when she hears my arguments, she will make it one of her missions as a Minister to take up the ideas that I am about to put forward.
	I first became involved in the issue 14 years ago, when I realised the extent of the misery and distress that rogue wheel-clamping companies were causing, not only in Doncaster Central, but in other parts of Yorkshire-and, for that matter, in hot spots around the country. Just how appalling some of those companies behave has been highlighted by both the Automobile Association and the Royal Automobile Club, which have received literally thousands of complaints from their members. I would like to thank Edmund King-now at the AA-for all the help that he has given me and other Members of the House in our campaign to outlaw unacceptable practices.
	The media have also recognised how outraged the public are about the problem. There are countless stories of truly unacceptable practices by some companies. I want to thank the  Doncaster Free Press for the campaign that it has been running with me to highlight how vulnerable elderly people, young mothers with children and, frankly, people who can least afford it are being stung for large amounts of money. I say "stung" because many such companies use every trick in the book to get round the legislation as it stands.
	The  Doncaster Free Press and I have received endless complaints from local people about a company called Park Rite, which operates in Doncaster. The company has concealed signs covered with minute writing, so that it is impossible to read that a particular location is a private car park, and it charges extortionate fees, often by charging two or three times for the same parking transgression-once for clamping and once for towing away, and then again for storage. There are complaints about the company's refusal to have a proper appeals procedure, using mobile phones that are not answered and demanding cash only. Park Rite accepts no other form of payment, such as cheques or debit cards, which has led to people being frogmarched to cash points, with the clampers standing over them to make sure that they come up with the money.
	The  Free Press and I launched a petition to call on Park Rite to change the way in which it was operating. We were supported by two local companies, Cooplands and Weldricks Pharmacy, and we received a huge amount of support. I had one meeting with the company, to try to reason with it and ask it at least to join the British Parking Association, so that it would need to adhere to the association's code of practice. As far as I am aware, it has not done so. Since then, it has been impossible to pin it down to another meeting. This epitomises the attitude of some of these companies: they are completely unaccountable for their actions, and they leave people frustrated and angry about the way they are treated-or, not so much treated as bullied.
	Of course we should not have a parking free-for-all, and of course private landowners need to protect their land, but we all know that that is not what is happening. This is not about keeping car parks free for specific users; it is about luring motorists on to private land to get as much money out of them as possible. It causes endless problems for the local police, who have to spend their time explaining to worried motorists that their car has not been stolen, but that it has been clamped and towed away.
	One of my constituents whose car was clamped had just had both his hips replaced. He was told that his car would not be released unless he handed over £100 in cash. Not having that kind of money on him, he had to walk into the centre of town to withdraw the money from the ATM. On his return, he was confronted with a further demand for £55 to cancel a towing vehicle that had been ordered while he was away. He had to go back into town to collect the money. This was on a Sunday night in February, when we were experiencing some of the coldest temperatures for a generation. He said that there were four notices in the car park, all of which were printed in small black and white lettering that would not have been legible in the dark to anyone who lacked outstanding eyesight.
	Another sorry tale involves two of my constituents-ladies in their 60s and 70s-who were fined £250 each to release their vehicles. Again, a lack of clear signage was the issue. The women also found that, when they called the number, there was an out-of-date answerphone message telling the caller to read the back of the parking ticket for information on how to appeal. However, the tickets that they had received had no information on clamping or appeals, or information about the time at which the cars were clamped. When they came to see me, they said that they had felt threatened by the man who had clamped them. He was not wearing a uniform and his vehicle was unmarked. They were also told by man on the telephone that, if they failed to pay the fine by 4 pm, they would have to pay another £100, and that he would not accept a cheque. In her own words, one of the women said of the incident:
	"I am a pensioner, and to be bullied, over the telephone...is very intimidating. The stress and anxiety caused, having to obtain money, hire a taxi and locate the whereabouts of the vehicles left me bereft and traumatized."
	Treating an elderly person in this way should not be tolerated.
	I have campaigned for tighter control of these companies over several years, along with a number of other Members of this House, some of whom are here tonight. I am grateful to them for their support. We made progress under the Labour Government, first by setting up the Security Industry Authority in 2005, then through the licensing of individual clampers. Unfortunately, that did not solve the problem. It became clear that the only way to guard against rogue practice would be to ensure that the private clamping companies-not just the clampers themselves-had to be licensed, had to conform to a strict code of conduct and had to be subject to an independent and fair appeals process.
	That is why the Crime and Security Act 2010 was passed. I want to pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell), who, as a Minister, pursued this issue relentlessly. It is thanks to him that those measures were included in that legislation. The Act introduced a requirement for clamping companies, as well as clampers, to be licensed. It also introduced a mandatory code of practice and an independent appeal system. The Act has been passed, but now we need urgent action to bring in the regulations. I know that my hon. Friend had a number of discussions about the implementation of the Act with organisations such as the AA, the RAC and the British Parking Association, so the groundwork has been done.
	The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government document stated:
	"We will tackle rogue private sector wheel clampers",
	which I certainly welcome. I am concerned, however, that the new Government have stated that they are rather averse to introducing any new regulations, so I would be grateful if the Minister gave me reassurances on the following points. First, can the Minister confirm that the Government will definitely introduce the necessary regulations under the Crime and Security Act 2010? Secondly, can the Minister also confirm the timetable for introduction? Thirdly, can she confirm that she intends to set up an independent panel to review appeals against fines, and will it be within the time scale set out by the previous Government-by 2011? Finally, can she say what steps will be taken to remove a wheel-clamping company from the approved operators scheme if it is found to be behaving inappropriately, and how long that would take?
	In the meantime, before the Minister brings in these new regulations, which is obviously going to be done quickly, I ask the Minister to ask the Home Secretary to encourage police forces in England and Wales to enforce the existing legislation that outlaws clamping without a licence. I am concerned that some unlicensed or criminal clamping does take place, but is not enforced.

Rosie Winterton: I know that my hon. Friend has campaigned hard on this issue as well. This is exactly the point: unless these regulations are brought in quickly, there is a danger that some of these clamping companies will feel that the foot has been taken off the pedal and that they will somehow have an opportunity to sneak in and increase rather than decrease their activities, when it is a decrease that we all want to see. As I say, some clamping firms may have many operatives, but few licences. The licence is produced by the operative who takes the money, not the one doing the clamping, which is probably technically illegal. If the Minister cannot give me an answer to this question now, will she perhaps come back to me in writing?
	Urgent regulations need to be introduced to implement the Crime and Security Act 2010 because the public have a right to be treated humanely. The law must afford people protection. At the moment, drivers continue to be terrorised by a small but active number of rogue wheel-clampers. As I said, this is a particular problem in Doncaster, but I know that many other areas around the country are also affected. We must prevent it happening in those other areas as well. No time should be lost in the Home Office's making of new regulations to outlaw this behaviour once and for all. I urge the Minister to do so.

Lynne Featherstone: May I congratulate the right hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Ms Winterton) on securing this debate on wheel-clamping? It is an important debate on a very important subject, and her interest in it is well documented. I am sure that the right hon. Lady's concerns are shared by many Members, if not every Member whose constituents have encountered these abuses. I am sure that what she has told us tonight is familiar to all of us from our constituencies. I know that wheel-clamping and the related activities of blocking in and towing away continue to cause great anger. Some of the most common complaints concern the amount of release fees, inadequate signage, and immediate clamping or towing away. Having been chair of transport in London for nearly five years when I was a member of the London Assembly, I am more than well acquainted with the problems that motorists face. I also know about the pressure on parking places. While safety, traffic flow and the fair rationing of parking spaces-on which there is always huge pressure-are entirely legitimate reasons for regulation, parking controls too often appear to be about revenue-raising, as the right hon. Lady pointed out. Our mission is to ensure that we deliver a solution to the problem.
	If we want people to comply willingly with parking controls, those controls must be fair and just. The right hon. Lady used two examples to illustrate how unjust rogue clampers can be-indeed, cruel beyond belief. Her story of the man with the hip replacements having to walk on a cold February night, and then being asked to do it again, seems to show the clampers verging on sadism. She went on to describe an incident in which two older ladies were each fined £250 when, in reality-as is so often the case-the issue was poor signage. Such cases seem to constitute little more than entrapment, in which rogue clampers literally set a trap. They view it as a honey pot, while we, the public, become the cash cow.
	Moreover, in my experience, more often than not it is those who try hard to comply with all the rules and controls who get caught out. People who seek to park legitimately and check for signs, but see none and park, are shattered not just by the upset caused by the financial hit from the clamping-which is substantial-but by the actual experience of being clamped when they were being good and trying not to break the rules. We must not let the good guys be the fall guys for rogue clampers. That is why the coalition's programme for partnership government, published on 20 May, included the commitment that the right hon. Lady quoted:
	"We will tackle rogue private sector wheel clampers."
	I hope that both what I have said-which was quite strong-and that published commitment by the coalition Government indicate our position, and assure the right hon. Lady that we are on the same side in this debate. I have seen examples of abuses of parking controls on private land in my own constituency, mostly involving poor signage but also involving abusive behaviour on the part of clampers.
	At present, the Private Security Industry Act 2001 requires individual vehicle immobilisers carrying out clamping and towing on private land with a view to charging a fee to hold a licence issued by the Security Industry Authority. That has been required in England and Wales since 2006, and was extended to Northern Ireland last year. Licensing of individual clampers is designed to protect the public by ensuring that only fit and proper persons with the necessary skills and knowledge are employed. As I am sure the right hon. Lady knows, to qualify for a licence applicants need to pass an identity check and a criminal record check, and to complete an accredited training course. There are currently more than 2,200 wheel-clampers with a licence. Since the introduction of licensing, over 290 people have had their applications for licences refused because they did not meet the criteria, and 22 licence-holders have had their licences revoked.
	The right hon. Lady asked some specific questions about enforcement in Doncaster. She asked me to encourage the Home Secretary to speak to the police, but it is up to individual police forces to decide what their priorities are and what to focus on. The Private Security Industry Act 2001 contained a number of specific offences to deal with people working without a licence and deploying unlicensed staff. The police do enforce that. The Security Industry Authority also has powers to do so, although it tends to focus on companies, rather than individuals. It can revoke licences, and the punishment for individuals not having a licence is up to six months in prison and/or a fine of up to £5,000.
	I looked up the performance of police forces. Merseyside is one of the best performing on the issue. In 2007, Merseyside police proceeded against 200 clampers and found 157 guilty. In 2008, the last year for which I could find figures, they proceeded against 54 and found 47 guilty. In South Yorkshire, which includes Doncaster Central, in 2007, no clampers were proceeded against, so none was found guilty. In 2008, two were proceeded against and two were found guilty. I suggest therefore that there is an issue that needs to be dealt with. However, it not necessarily for the Home Secretary to deal with it. It is beholden perhaps on all Members of Parliament in that area to speak to the police chief to point out that differential figure, which is startling.
	On only one operative having a licence, the right hon. Lady is correct: it is a legal requirement for everyone involved in clamping activity to have a licence-not just those who receive the money, but those who put on and remove the clamps. The licences must be displayed and it is an offence not to wear the licence. Those in companies that supply unlicensed workers can face an unlimited fine and up to five years in prison. The police should also be acting on those cases.
	Experience has shown, however, that licensing of individuals has had little impact on the behaviours which generate most complaints from the public. That is because most of those behaviours are controlled by the vehicle immobilisation businesses, and are out of the control of the individual clampers.
	The Home Office conducted a public consultation last year to gather more information about these abuses. Over 500 people responded. That research showed that the public's main concerns, which had not been addressed by individual licensing, include, pretty much as the right hon. Lady annunciated: inadequate signage, including small size and poor visibility, so motorists do not know that they are not allowed to park or the consequences of overstaying; high release fees, sometimes totalling hundreds of pounds; demanding immediate cash payments and not accepting other forms of payment, such as credit or debit cards; immediate clamping or towing away after a parking ticket has expired; the lack of an effective means of contesting a charge; no place for the motorist to turn when they feel unfairly treated; lack of evidence from the clampers that the motorist had breached parking rules, such as photographic evidence or retention of records; and aggressive or intimidating behaviour by the clampers. Many of my constituents have faced such problems. Some have phoned me in tears because of seriously abusive behaviour.
	The Government are committed to tackling the menace of rogue private sector wheel-clampers and are looking at all available options. I have seen articles in the media over the past few days that ask whether and when the Government plan to bring into force the Crime and Security Act 2010, which was introduced by the previous Government. The Act seeks to address these problems by requiring vehicle immobilisation businesses to be licensed by the Security Industry Authority and to comply with the conditions of a code to be set out in regulations. These conditions could, for example, limit the release fee and require the display of signs warning motorists where clamping takes place. It would also allow for an independent appeals system to be set up for motorists who have been clamped.
	This new system is not in place, however. The 2010 Act received Royal Assent on 8 April, just prior to the general election, but the relevant provisions have not yet been commenced. I want to make it absolutely clear that the coalition Government response actually tackles the problems caused by rogue clampers. The Act does not necessarily solve all of the problems, however, so I am looking at all available options as quickly as possible, including those not set out in the 2010 Act.
	This is the right time to consider our approach before taking any action. We should adopt an approach that is proportionate, and which balances the rights of the motorist to have access to their vehicle with the rights of landowners to use and control access to their property. Clamping should not be used simply as a means of generating revenue from motorists who have no choice but to pay. We have been clear about our commitment to tackle rogue wheel-clampers, and we will do so, but I want to ensure that our response is clear, decisive and effective.
	We understand the concerns of Members and others who have made representations about wheel-clamping and want to see action. I agree that we must act. As soon as we have decided on the way forward, we will announce our intentions and we will act.
	I thank the right hon. Lady again for securing this important debate.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.